Will this game cover the West and Italian fronts and the need to defend the Reich factories like in WIR? Or will the battle in Russia be fought in complete isolation to the events in the West, MED front and Allied bombing campaign 42-45? The issue being can one or must one deplete or augment those areas as time goes on?

The map only extends 100 miles West of Berlin so my guess is: most likely no. However, I do wonder if there will be features in the game whereby German units are recalled "off map" in order to fight their historic battles in the West? Will the German player have to contend with unit withdrawal like the British have ship withdrawal in WitP?

EDIT: Whoops didn't see your edit. That would be an interesting aspect to the game.

Nope, as I said in another post, those areas are taken as historical. Production tables will reflect that, and withdrawls also. Listen guys this game is so vast as it is, you won't be concerned, you'll be glad that that is built in...

Nope, as I said in another post, those areas are taken as historical. Production tables will reflect that, and withdrawls also. Listen guys this game is so vast as it is, you won't be concerned, you'll be glad that that is built in...

So it sounds like it will be different then from the earlier games? As I recall the player had the option of changing what forces were assigned to the off-map West and Italian/Med fronts, which allowed the player to take risks in those theatres in the hopes of achieving a decisive result in the East.

That's too bad. I guess I had assumed that this would largely be an update of the excellent earlier games without any significant changes outside of UI and graphics.

Pyle, not complaining or proposing, just wondering. So the Axis player wont ever need to give or be able to take from those areas? And wont need to worry about a series of game ending "events" on the West or Italian fronts because he hasnt purposefully depleted the Russian front to beef up those fronts?

In WIR as the campaign progressed, the judgements on how many fighter resources to keep in the Reich protecting the factories was always an interesting dilemna. Also rotating the air units between West, Italy, Reich and Russia for training or refit was fun....

If units can be rotated to different fronts by the Germans in WIR, what was the penalty for the German player stripping other fronts in order to beef up the East? I'm thinking it would be fun to have a system like WITP. In WITP the Japanese must keep a set amount of assault value points in the Manchukuo theatre to prevent the Soviets from entering the war against them. It would be neat in WITE if you had to keep a certain level force pool in the West and Italian fronts but could choose which units to send or not. Of course the German player would probably simply strip the fronts of Panzer units and send all his worst infantry units West. [X(]

Gary, In WIR, radically stripping the West or Ital fronts was an edgy game done at your own peril. If you over did it, a series of "events" would result in Axis defeat, game over, 42-45, regardless of how clever your operations in the East. Additionaly, you had to slowly and manually send combat resources from the East to keep those Fronts from shattering as the the campaign progressed.

Yep, I'll say this one more time, you won't be sad about this. Were putting out a game thats playable, fun, historic, and bug free...There has to be certain things you cut back on, or a turn will take 8 hours to play. I can't get the wife out of the house that long...lol...

We really have a good, smart and a experenced test group. With every new update, bug reports come out like hotcakes at Denny's. Joel and Gary really focus on these reports, they update agian, and we retest agian...

The German production situation is such a complicated issue that I don't see the point allowing people to tinker too much anyway. Particularly if it grants access to certain vehicle types earlier than is historical.

One thing, though. If historical unit withdrawls (eg July 1943 and Sicily) happen, what happens in those historical situations where the Germans did strip units away from other fronts because of a crisis.

The easiest example is maybe some of the units they transferred to give to Manstein as he reassembled the front in the south in late 1942 after the Red Army encircled Stalingrad.

In the game, the AXIS player may not (indeed probably won't) have a front torn widen up at the point those units are historically hurriedly mobilised and bussed east to plug gaps. If they aren't in trouble, in reality the units may never have appeared, or certainly not appeared when they did.

Do these units appear as reinforcements on their historical cues? Would it not be better to have a series of "panic" events which would transfer these units east upon player request if something nasty happened etc?

Great to hear this is finally coming out. I played many a game of WIR (and many other eastern front boards before it). Kind of sorry to hear of the demise of the West/Italian and home fronts but sounds like a monster worse than WITP so I doubt it would be missed.

I agree with Ironduke on having some sort of system for "panic" cues that release german units from other fronts. It undoubtedly will be a compromise solution (if one is used) that will mean lots of bwm from some, but... 1. Certain number of german divisions destroyed/surrounded? 2. Certain key cities taken? 3. Certain distance of advance?

Just thoughts...

BTW Maybe this will be aval after I come back from iraq...that would be a nice homecoming gift...

A game simulating the whole ETO would have been nice. However this games seems big as it is. Am looking forward to it. I wonder if War in the West is next...

A War in the West would REALLY be the holy grail of wargames methinks. Perhaps War in the East will be to a War in the West what Uncommon Valor was to War in the Pacific? [sm=innocent0001.gif]

There are a lot of inherent problems with trying to do large strategic games, where decisions really are strategic, and then confining them to an artificial area. If you just take the Western Front, you'd end up sitting through many turns (80%) or so of the game where your units do nothing other than dig trenches along the French coast. Such a treatment needs other theaters to keep the player entertained, and to emphasize that decisions taken on one front influence other fronts.

I think the idea of forcing the west to be historical rather restricting. It really puts a damper on any "what-if" situational thinking.

Now I understand the need to reduce the size of the game - but couldn't some simplfied system of western and mediterranean fronts be incorporated like in WIR? I really liked that system where you could put more into those fronts to try and prolong a Western Allied victory or even create a stalemate with luck. Or also take away from those fronts and run the risk of an earlier front collapse. (i.e influeceing the events on those fronts with the amounts of units). Nothing fancy - just a box and results - very similar to like in WIR. That gave you at least some feel of being able to do something instead of nothing with respect to those fronts.